For Fear of Your Brother
by Miss Scarlett
Summary: As war rages in Germania, Lucilla dwells on her complex relationship with Commodus. My first fanfic, please review it!


Lucilla had tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep. In the blackness of her chamber, which had once belonged to her mother, she saw her breath rise above her in the icy air. This palace was a fortress – not a suitable home for anyone. 

Least of all herself, her loyal servants and her precious, innocent son; especially now, as they all wrestled with such grief as now possessed them. Far away, soldiers fought for the Empire in Germania, in freezing snow and terrible danger. 

Such old places as the Imperial Palace are full of woeful memories, of restless and wretched ghosts. As an unmarried princess, slumbering in these rooms with her nurse resting in a pallet at the foot of her bed, Lucilla had been subject to night terrors. These waking nightmares, when she chanced to lift her heavy lids and see numerous macabre shadows rising up the high walls, had made her childhood a painful, lonely drudgery. 

Through it all, she had taught herself never to cry. Princesses, her mother had admonished, never cry.

_Always be strong, my dear._

Instead she had closed her eyes, and slept as best she could. For so many years she had swallowed her miseries, by day and by night, never telling anyone how much she longed to be free. To be free from the seclusion of the palace, from the restrictions and requirements of her royal childhood, from the terrors. To be free to tell someone when she felt down. To cry sometimes.

Commodus, her brother and only occasional playmate, was several years younger than she, and their father's only living son. He was isolated, like her, but for very different reasons. To the Imperial family he was a prize to be guarded at all costs – and guarded he was. Even the number of women assigned to care for him was limited. His contact with the outside world was virtually non-existent. 

Against all odds, he had survived infancy. Unlike Titus, his luckless twin brother, who had died suddenly when the children were four. Despite his own sickliness, Commodus was strong. Possibly too much so. The Roman Empire rejoiced that her future was assured, at least for the time being. To his parents and the politicians all around him, he was purely an asset. 

To his sister, on the other hand, he was a gem. Never in her life had she been more enamoured of anything than that little dark-haired bundle she had carried into his naming ceremony, herself so small she had to be carried by two senators.

She hadn't cared that, as a mere girl, she was almost totally shunned from the moment Commodus's birth had been announced. Love conquered any irrational resentment she may have felt for her beloved little brother. She lived to be invited into his nursery on those rare occasions, to see him toddle on unsteady legs into her open arms, his face cut in half with a toothy grin. 

It had made both of their lives _just _bearable.

Together they had grown, in the same desolate palace, she a royal pawn and he the royal treasure. From across crowded rooms, they smiled at one another. As she hardened against the realities of the world, however, she watched as he shrank from it, and she ached with terrible, ominous fear for reasons she could hardly fathom, so blinded was she by her devotion to him. 

Often they would sit together, side by side, and just hold each other's hands, glad for that moment of pure, tender contact and acknowledgement of one another's love, before they were separated again to carry on with their respective lives. And how dissimilar those lives were – how far apart brother and sister gradually drifted.

As pressure increased on his young shoulders, Commodus's pale skin became paler, making his darkly boyish beauty even more apparent. His body, however, strengthened as his resolution to reach some goal unknown to her grew. Their mutual love was ever straining as the years passed slowly by.

The memories, the hurtful and the priceless, were equally vivid and piercing.

For Lucilla, the advent of adulthood was sped up as her marriage came onto the horizon. Annia Lucilla, daughter of Marcus Aurelius, was a most desirable bride. Rigorous training at the hands of her mother and attendants, in the many arts of ladyship and wifedom, had not been in vain. The feeling was intoxicating to her; as sweet as it was terrifying. She would share her bed at night; have someone with whom to air her feelings. Finally, she would not be alone.

"Do your duty," her mother told her repeatedly. Duty. What was a woman's duty? Thinking of Commodus, as she did every day, she thought of how his duty was designated as his purely by fate, as was hers. And yet how so much more responsibility was destined to rest on his youthful shoulders. 

She had not loved Lucius Verus right away. He was a ragged yet formidable middle-aged warrior with a slow, cautious way of looking at her. Not what she had expected, but then, she wasn't sure what she'd expected. Her husband took plenty of getting used to, in many ways. She was tender; her ripe youth and his jaded, cumbersome ways, like water and oil, never mixed entirely. 

Thankfully, however, little stood in the way of their becoming friends. Political contract and geographical convenience aside, it was a good match. But at the same time, Lucilla's hopes of blissful happiness and true, romantic love, eroded away as did her childish idealism.

By night, as her husband snored beside her – taking up double the space she did in their matrimonial bed – she thought for hours of Commodus. They exchanged letters much less frequently than she would have liked. As the months passed, and the infuriating sparseness of state occasions made their meetings especially rare, his notes to her became somewhat more hesitant. Impending childbirth sharpened her emotions, and she wrote him almost daily, even from her confinement. His replies were terse – nothing remained of the closeness there had been between them as children.

When she gave birth to Lucius Verus's son and heir, of the same name in accordance with tradition, Commodus sent her cold congratulations. Now aged twelve, he was already being meticulously groomed to succeed their ailing father. Still writing numerous letters, Lucilla attempted, often fruitlessly, to communicate the full extent of her love and compassion for him. 

"My darling," said her husband, warmth radiating in his voice and his eyes. "Families are complicated. Especially families like ours. You must be patient and brave, my love."

She had Lucius Verus's unconditional, undivided love every day of their life together, even when he was far away from her, defending the empire whenever duty called. Until that day, so few years after their marriage, when he was gone from her forever. She stood, her little boy's pleadings in her ears – "Where's Father? Mother, where is he?" – clutching his cloak in her hands, the signifier of his untimely death.

The absence of her brother's love, and the dreadful pain this caused her, had been so long eased by her husband's undying affection. Once again, she was lost without Commodus.

A perversely short time later, news came that their father, another wonderful man whom Lucilla had scarcely laid eyes on during her married life, was dying. Devastation crowding in on her once more, mixed with elation that she would soon be with Commodus again, she made the journey back to the Imperial Palace.

She had feared that she had lost Commodus too. Now here he was, walking as fast as propriety would allow, towards her carriage to greet her, looking as happy as if the gods themselves were honouring him with a visit.

"My dear sister! Please take my hand, come with me…there, now you must come inside! We have much to discuss!"

A blissful smile spreading across her weary features, she gave in. Her hand clutched in his, all the anger, hurt and worries of past years melted away, as does winter snow beneath much-anticipated spring sunshine.

His personality seemed divided. His beauty, as he grew, remained unchanged and irresistible. To everyone. She knew he had lovers; many of them, and the thought disturbed her. When he was not sweetly courteous, he was lecherous. Trying to envision the sweet boy child she had rocked to sleep in her own arms those few unforgettable times was near impossible now, in view of what that black-haired cherub had become.

His temper was terrifying. One moment he could be thanking a young male servant for helping him to dress, and the next, savagely beating the boy with the butt of a dagger for failing to meet some trifling requirement, until blood ran down the sobbing child's bruised face. 

If the servant was female, however, the story was quite different. 

One morning, Lucilla happened to be taking breakfast with her brother when she witnessed what she later discovered to be a frequent scenario for him.

"Will that be all, your highness?" said a young girl, smiling and shy, obviously very taken by her handsome employer.

"Not quite," he replied, appraising her discreetly out of the corner of his eye, a small but unmistakeable smile on his lips.

Lucilla sat, trying to conceal her disgust. Though she had never herself witnessed such behaviour in the past, she knew it was to be expected. Her mother had warned her of men's fickleness, and of a royal gentleman's right to a mistress. But so many, and so young? Her brother was a teenager still, and the girls…

_Always be strong. Do your duty. Do not cry.._

Commodus rose, following the servant girl from the room. Before he did, however, he smiled and bowed to his sister. She smiled back politely, nausea rising in the pit of her stomach. Rumours abounded that he did not even wait for permission to lie with some women. Should they refuse his advances, he took them by force.

And yet, Lucilla could not bear to be far away from him. The much more pleasant times were their nightly conversations, one of the few remnants of their childhood together. These were the peaceful times, the pure ones. They talked for hours, about everything and nothing, she occasionally plucking up dubious courage to allow him to hold her hands.

"I love you, Lucilla. I hope you know that."

Her eyes had filled with tears almost before the words could register. Her heart and soul filled with love for him in a way she hadn't experienced in years. Suddenly unable to resist holding him, she pulled her dearest brother's body to hers and buried her face in his sweet hair, the only way she knew to express the magnitude of what she felt.

"I love you too! Oh, so much…promise we will never leave each other again?"

"I promise," he replied, a sincere smile quite apparent in his voice.

This was the purpose of their wretched lives: to be there for one another, no matter what each other's faults. It had to be. She could not help loving him so much.

Until one night, not so long ago. When all her hunches, all the things she found so discomfiting and so distressing about his presence, took on a frightening and repulsive new edge.

In the very bedroom she now occupied, she had been trying to sleep, the walls that had blighted her girlhood dreams beginning to work their dark magic once again. She groaned, before hearing the heavy door of her chamber opening. Her heart leapt with joy. It could only be Commodus.

Resisting the urge to embrace him again, she nevertheless greeted him warmly, touching his cheek with her hand. But there was something different in his eyes tonight, something dark, which disturbed her. It didn't fit with the overall fondness of his expression.

"I know how lonely you are, Lucilla. You've told me enough times. You're there for me anytime I need you…now it is my turn to be here for you. Oh, look, you've been weeping…"

She flinched, despite herself, as he wiped her damp cheeks gently. He then laid his hands on her bare arms, his grip letting her know she did not have a choice but to listen to him.

"Commodus, you need not visit me here at night…"

"Yes, but where else can we be alone?" His use of the word 'alone' made her skin crawl. Her brother could not be this bad a man. It was not possible. She had lost everyone…her sweetheart Maximus, long since disappeared…her husband…soon her father.

If Commodus were really this evil, she would lose him. Even as he stared at her, his gaze turning more intense, more lustful, in her mind's eye she saw that little boy she had grown up with, dying. He was gone to her now, and yet still here…only a different creature. A monster.

"Commodus, you must leave now." The harshness in her own voice, and the disappointment and reluctant acceptance in his eyes (green like pools full of poison, not mint leaves as she had once fancied) completed finally the breaking of her heart, after so many years of damage to it.

That was the crushing of any hope she had ever had.

Soon, Lucilla ruminated sadly; the wars in Germania will be over. My father will die. Commodus will be emperor. My life will be over; if truly I ever possessed one.

The shadows above her bed loomed, causing her to close her tear-filled eyes tightly. But I love you, Commodus. I may never be able to look you in the eye again, but I love you. Please let me live the rest of my life, however long that may be, in peace. Please do not harm my child.

Pure uncertainty was her last sentiment before she fell asleep. But the gods had one last surprise for her.

Vivid dreams soon came to her, haunted by the face of one more man, one of the many who had dominated her life thus far, and always would. His was a gentler, softer face; more so than any she had ever known. She remembered him from her youth, from their brief involvement, before she had been called forth to marry. 

A familiar and yet remote emotion began to take hold of her once again. In her insensibility, she allowed it to fill her completely, as if rays of hot sunshine were penetrating her entire being. Unbeknownst to her, she and this very special man would soon be together again.

_Maximus…_

_ _


End file.
